Trillium sessile Linnaeus, 1753 - toadshade in Ohio, USA.

Plants are multicellular, photosynthetic eucaryotes. The oldest known land plant body fossils are Silurian in age. Fossil root traces of land plants are known back in the Ordovician. The Devonian was the key time interval during which land plants flourished and Earth experienced its first “greening” of the land. The earliest land plants were small and simple and probably remained close to bodies of water. By the Late Devonian, land plants had evolved large, tree-sized bodies and the first-ever forests appeared.

The most conspicuous group of living plants is the angiosperms, the flowering plants. They first unambiguously appeared in the fossil record during the Cretaceous. They quickly dominated Earth's terrestrial ecosystems, and have dominated ever since. This domination was due to the evolutionary success of flowers, which are structures that greatly aid angiosperm reproduction.

The toadshade, Trillium sessile, is native to parts of eastern America. It has very dark red flowers that stink of rotting meat, in order to attract pollinators such as flies.

Classification: Plantae, Angiospermophyta, Liliales, Melanthiaceae

Locality: trailside forest between Ohio State University at Newark campus and Raccoon Creek, Licking County, east-central Ohio, USA (vicinity of 40˚ 03' 45.96" North latitude, 82˚ 26' 23.12" West longitude)

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